The French Girl(60)



“I never answered your question, though,” Lara says as we start to climb the threadbare stairs. “We weren’t apart that I was aware of, except to go to the loo, but we did sleep. I don’t know how long for—maybe just a couple of hours?”

Tom has left the door of his flat ajar; we push through, and despite my now numerous visits, it still surprises me to see this oasis of light and modern style after the genteel shabbiness of the common areas. Following noise, we find him hunting down some wineglasses in the kitchen. “I presume a glass of wine wouldn’t go amiss, ladies?” he says with a grin, raising the bottle of white in his hand. He’s had time to change after work; he’s wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt that picks up the color in his eyes.

“Now that’s what I call a welcome.” Lara smiles flirtatiously as she kisses him hello. I glance away and thus am completely unprepared when he wraps his arms around me in his bear hug of old. The T-shirt is of the softest cotton, and he smells of the same aftershave from that dark, delicious corridor; for a moment the ache is blinding. When I pull myself together enough to return the hug I think I hear the stroke of his warm breath deliver Sorry into my ear. When he releases me I stare after him, trying to search his eyes, but he busies himself hunting down a corkscrew and then Lara pulls out a bar stool for me and I’m left wondering what just happened as I settle beside her on one side of the kitchen counter.

Tom is facing us, the dark granite kitchen counter between us. “So, what news?” he asks, uncorking the bottle. He’s meeting my eyes from time to time, but I’m failing to divine anything from his expression. The bar stool is an uncomfortable height: I can’t rest my elbows on the counter, and my feet don’t reach the floor, yet there’s no strut for them to rest on. I feel perched and precarious.

I shrug, leaving Lara to fill the gap. “Not much,” she says lightly. “I’ve turned celibate, and Kate is trying to figure out whether you could have killed Severine.”

She’s being flippant, of course she’s being flippant, but Tom pauses in the act of pouring, his eyes leaping to mine. “And?” he asks after a beat, placing the bottle carefully down and maintaining the eye contact. It’s clear he’s completely disregarding the celibacy comment; whether that will irk Lara or not I don’t know or care, because I currently feel like killing her for putting me in this position. I can feel her shifting uneasily beside me as it dawns on her that her comment is actually being taken seriously. “Do you think I’m capable of it?” Tom asks in a measured tone.

It feels like a challenge, though over what I’m not sure. Still, I rise to it. “Yes,” I say simply.

“Kate!” I hear Lara exclaim, but I’m still locked in a gaze with Tom. There’s nothing I can read in his eyes. Then he inclines his head a little and returns to pouring the wine.

“I’m not saying he did,” I explain in an aside to Lara, though my eyes keep darting back to Tom, looking for something, anything, that tells me what he’s thinking. I try to hook one ankle round the leg of the stool, searching for some balance. I need an anchor. “I’m just saying he’s capable of it. Under the right circumstances.” I take a sip of the wine that Tom has pushed toward me. “Probably all of us are under the right circumstances.”

“Not all, I don’t think,” says Tom thoughtfully. He has a beer instead; he takes a long pull of it. “Well, maybe everyone is capable of an accidental murder,” he concedes. “But the cover-up—that’s the crucial bit. Not everyone would have the self-possession to do that rather than calling the emergency services.”

You would, I think immediately; then I realize he’s watching me and have the uncomfortable feeling he can read my mind as he smiles thinly and raises his beer in a mock toast.

“Well,” says Lara after a pause. “We’ve certainly bypassed the small talk this evening.” She picks up her own wine and takes a long draft.

“Have either of you eaten?” asks Tom abruptly. “I’ve already warmed the oven; shall I shove some pizzas in or something?”

The process of deliberating over the food options dispels the atmosphere; for a few moments this might be simply a social evening. But once the oven door has been swung shut, Tom takes another swig of his beer and I see him change gear.

“Right,” he says decisively, looking at Lara and me in turn. “I think it’s cards on the table time now. What do you guys think happened that night?”

“My cards are on the table,” Lara complains. “They’ve always been on the table. I never thought it was one of us.” She spreads her hands wide in exasperation, almost knocking over her glass. “Oops, sorry, I already had a glass or two after work with some colleagues . . . Anyway, so . . . unless you, Tom, managed to kill Severine, get rid of her body, clean yourself up and get back into bed with me in the space of a little more than an hour, maybe two, then I have absolutely no information.”

I’m taken aback by the casual way in which she can mention being in bed with Tom—with Tom—in public, to Tom himself, without an iota of a blush. I glance at him quickly, but he doesn’t appear fazed in the slightest. “I’m good,” he says with dark humor, “but not that good.”

I try to stamp down my swelling sense of injustice—that Lara, who casually slept with him then tossed him aside, gets entirely forgiven, yet I am held out to dry for a mere kiss—but there’s a thread of irritation that leaks through into my words. “But you’re presuming the same person did it all,” I declare bluntly. “It’s possible more than one person was involved. Maybe an accidental killing by one, then one or two more involved in the cover-up . . .” This discussion is so abstract, so passionless, that it’s hard to remember the girl it relates to. I glance around for her, but she’s not in attendance. I feel an extra prickle of irritation: what kind of ghost wouldn’t be interested in discussions on their own death? Though I suppose it’s not as if she doesn’t know the punch line . . .

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